The Joy of Travel: DC Edition

I am often asked whether I have time to go sightseeing while on business trips. I wish. More often than not, it goes like this: in, hotel, meeting, out. Today, I was not so lucky.

I needed to go to Washington for a meeting tomorrow morning. My 4:00 PM flight was delays for want of a flight attendant. That delay meant we got off the ground at about 4:45, which would have been fine had a line of thunderstorms not been headed for DC. We circled over Pennsylvania until we were low on fuel, at which point we landed in Harrisburg. No, there was no time for sightseeing there. I'm not sure what sites there are to see, but we were not allowed off the plane.

Forty-five minutes and one tank of gas later, we were off to DC. Rather than a 7:00 PM arrival, I got to the hotel at 10:30.

I'm now at the Helix, a fairly swanky spot that stops serving food at 10:00. After a long interrogation of the front desk, I determined that my best option for food was to order a pizza. Starving, I was not willing to wait that long. Having spent five hours on the plane finishing The Terror by Dan Simmons, I was having serious thought of eating first my shoes and then the left leg of whoever is in the next room. After a second interrogation of the front desk, I discovered that there is a 7-11 a block away. Dinner!

Ah yes, the fancy expense account dinner: Dannon peach smoothy, plastic wrapped turkey on wheat, and chips. Ain't this the life.

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